Epidemiologists at the University of Manchester found certain patients are more or less likely to get prescribed antibiotics by their doctor for common infections. Following 15.7 million patient records, researchers found the oldest patients were 31% less likely to get antibiotics for upper respiratory infections than young adults.

This is despite the fact that older people also have a greater risk of hospital admission and complications. Not only is this potentially worsening health outcomes for older people, young people getting antibiotics could also be suffering. With a more robust immune system, young adults may not need these medications, which can cause them to develop resistance to.

This sparked major concerns as the levels of drug-resistant infections continue to rise worldwide. Patients with multiple diseases were also 7% less likely to get antibiotics for upper respiratory infections than people without major health issues.

Lead authors Dr Ali Fahmi and Professor Tjeerd van Staa weighed in on the results with a warning after the study was published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.

Professor Van Staa said: “Given the threat of resistance, there is a need to better target antibiotics in primary care to patients with higher risks of infection-related complications such as sepsis.

“But this study finds that antibiotics for common infections are commonly not prescribed according to complication risk and that suggests there is plenty of scope to do more on reducing antibiotic prescribing.”

Dr Fahmi added: “Rather than imposing targets for reducing inappropriate prescribing, we argue that it is far more viable for clinicians to focus on improving risk-based antibiotic prescribing for infections that are less severe and typically self-limiting.

“Prognosis and harm should explicitly be considered in treatment guidelines, alongside better personalised information for clinicians and patients to support shared decision making.”